Teen Wolf- "Men of a Certain Age (2/2)"
On the anniversary of Victoria Argent’s death, Sheriff Stilinski is kidnapped by dragons.
It’s almost perfect timing except for where it’s not, because Sheriff Stilinski is kidnapped by dragons like some sort of fairytale princess. On the other hand, it will give Chris something evil to take out his frustrations on (hopefully) given that the entire week leading up to today, Chris had been withdrawn and something akin to surly, insofar as someone so stoic can be surly. He’d shot Derek in the leg the night before, ostensibly by accident, but when Derek hadn’t mouthed a single word (or even a growl) of complaint, the Sheriff suddenly remembered what date was almost upon them.
He’d tentatively asked afterwards, if maybe Chris wanted to do something on Saturday, remaining purposefully vague because he hadn’t been sure if Chris was the kind of guy who wanted to go out on the night and completely forget, or if he was the opposite, and was the kind of man who would sit at her gravesite all day and make himself remember.
He still doesn’t technically know, to be perfectly honest, because Chris had only grunted back noncommittally, and, well, the Sheriff has since been kidnapped. By dragons.
Who don’t look anything like dragons. In fact, they look like regular people, except they breathe fire and have a stockpile of stolen gold jewelry from various heists across the county stored in the sewers under Beacon Hills Community College. The Sheriff is starting to wonder if they’re were-dragons and can actually transform into huge, scaly, fire-breathing flying lizards at will. The thought is kind of terrifying. More rationally, he wonders if maybe they’re hopped up on drugs and just think they’re dragons, which makes more sense in the real world. Especially because that would also explain why they seem to think the Sheriff of Beacon Hills is a princess and needs to be kidnapped and kept chained up in a dungeon next to their piles of gold.
Except that people who are incredibly high would probably be less good at procuring so much gold for themselves without getting caught. Also, this is Beacon Hills, which is only real world adjacent on its best days.
The Sheriff sighs as his own logic comes back to bite him in the ass. So these guys are actually dragons who can transform into humans and who are in complete possession of all their faculties, however evil they may be.
Which means, at the very least, that they don’t actually think he’s really a princess.
“Argent will come to save him right?” the shortest of the three dragons murmurs to a gangly one with bright red hair. “I mean, the rumors said one thing, but they don’t actually smell like they’re…” he trails off, wrinkling his nose in confusion.
The Sheriff rolls his eyes because there is no such thing as friendship between men anymore, even to mythical fairytale creatures that are traditionally evil.
“Just shut up and watch the entrance,” the redhead snaps back. “He’ll bring the sword unless he wants the Sheriff torched.” The redhead turns to offer the Sheriff a leer as he says that, gray smoke curling through his nostrils in a threatening way.
The Sheriff tries to look unimpressed. He is currently handcuffed with his own handcuffs to a railing, which is embarrassing, but at the same time, kind of comforting, because he’s dislocated his own thumbs before, and he knows if he makes himself bleed just enough, it’ll be all the lubrication he’ll need to pull a hand through. Like hell he’s going to sit here and wait for Chris to walk into an ambush. Though knowing Chris, he probably won’t, and there will be werewolves with him, but all the same, the Sheriff is not actually sure how one goes about killing a dragon (even with werewolf help), short of what he’s seen in Disney movies.
It sounds like Chris is bringing a sword with him though, so that seems promising. The Sheriff manages to hold back a wince as he dislocates his left thumb.
The dragons pace around their little basement keep impatiently in the meantime, and through the haze of his pain, the Sheriff focuses on them, studies them, and makes notes, because even when he’s fighting supernatural baddies of every size and shape, his cop’s instincts don’t just turn off. The short one seems nervous, but excited, walking purposefully back and forth around the floor while the redhead breathes in, patrols a little more carefully, eyes alert like he’s actually nervous about what’s coming. They circle close to the gold mostly, keeping greedy eyes on it.
A bolt clicks from the top of the staircase and they both still instinctively, before catching the scent of something familiar and relaxing. An older-looking man wearing a janitor’s uniform strolls down the stairs, eyes flashing yellow in the dim light as he passes into the Sheriff’s line of vision. “Gird yourselves, boys,” the newcomer announces jovially, accented and gruff. “Argent is coming. Flew over his car on the highway. He’s not got the pups with him either, if you believe it.” Both young dragons react positively to this.
“It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel,” the redhead snorts, relaxing back against a boiler.
The short one looks jubilant. “Then we’ve got it, boss. This is the end of it all.”
The leader’s eyes sparkle dangerously in response, and the Sheriff swears he sees fang in the old man’s grin. “That’s right. No more hunting that fake garbage across the damn continent. If they say Argent has it after all, then Argent has it.”
The Sheriff has no idea what they’re talking about, wincing marginally as he works on rubbing his wrist along the edge of the cuffs in order to break the skin and start bleeding. Why Chris would do something so irrational as not bring their werewolf pack to a monster fight makes him angry for a second, before he remembers, suddenly, what tonight is, was supposed to be, for the man. Seeing the pack would probably be the last thing on his agenda for today. Being irrational is also a necessary part of that same agenda. For all the Sheriff knows, Chris is headed here half drunk and out of his mind.
Jovial, the old dragon grasps his two underlings fondly by the back of their necks. “Last one boys. We get this last sword in our hands and we’re unstoppable.”
The Sheriff absently wonders if Chris has Excalibur hidden in the depths of his family’s old weapons cabinet or something. It wouldn’t be a far cry from what he’s come to expect, considering, but then again, the Sheriff isn’t sure he’s ready for Merlin and Arthur to be real either.
His breath only hitches a little as he manages to slide his first hand free. His wrist oozes blood and the skin is scraped raw and painful, but he can still move it mostly normally after popping his thumb back in place, fingers wrapping around the gun that the dragons hadn’t even bothered to divest him of when they’d jumped him in his own damn driveway earlier. That probably just means his gun can’t hurt them, but having it makes him feels loads better. It’s like a security blanket that kills things (some things).
He hisses in a sharp breath as he starts on his right hand, this one going more quickly now that he’s half free. For now, all he can hope for is Chris storming the castle (so to speak) in a truly spectacular and distracting manner so that when he suddenly pops loose, a dragon won’t kill him instantly. Then they can share knowledge on how one kills dragons-that-look-like-humans and go from there.
But what feels like only moments later, all the Sheriff’s hopes and dreams are shattered by a firm, but not very spectacular or distracting, knock on the door.
The Sheriff groans as the short dragon goes to open it. He hears footsteps descending again after that, and before he knows what’s happening, the dragon is hauling Chris downstairs by the arm. Chris has a scabbard in his hand, old looking and cracked. Inside of it is a rusty old sword.
The Sheriff looks at Chris incredulously. The dragons grin.
“As I said on the phone, we trade the sword for the Sheriff, Mr. Argent,” leader-dragon prompts.
Chris looks pissy and tired, and a little bit like he’s spent the entire day curled up in a ball of self-pity on his couch before he’d gotten the call from the Sheriff’s phone, courtesy of the dragons. He tosses the sword, without any preamble, down on the floor at the leader’s feet. “Done,” he says, and the curtness of his response is enough to even make the bad guys falter a little bit.
“The last known sword forged with the blood of a dragon, and you give it to us so carelessly?” the leader whistles, almost disbelieving. “When they said house Argent was falling down around itself they weren’t lying, I suppose.”
Chris’s eyes harden, sharp like diamonds at the words. “The Sheriff,” he says, voice frigid.
The leader picks up the sword instead, examines it with some strange mixture of awe and fear. “No, you don’t get to make any demands now, child. This is the last known weapon that can kill us. What do we have to fear from you or your kind anymore?” he hisses, fingers of his free hand stretching and shifting, turning scaly in the light and glinting with obsidian talons. “You gave it over so easily, without even a fight.”
“Are you complaining?” Chris asks, sounding amused.
The leader snorts. “We’ve all known since you took over for Gerard that you have always been the weakest link, boy. Your father, your wife, even your mother, were so feared by our kind. Your sister too, was respectable as a warrior. But you? I look at you know and all I see is you’ve grown soft and fat and tired with the years.” He grins and his teeth begin to morph as well, human skin peeling back to reveal a bat-like creature with a long snout and a flickering forked tongue. “And now we slay the last of the great monster slayers.”
Chris’s jaw twitches. “It’s true,” he admits eventually, and the Sheriff slips his other hand free in the meantime. “I let us get to this.” He puts his arms out, palms facing the leader, ostensibly in surrender. “Because I can’t fight like the rest of them did.”
The leader snorts, unimpressed. “This is the family that nearly wiped out Clan Buccleuch a hundred years ago?” he scoffs, and eyes Chris like Chris’s name is about as intimidating as well, the Sheriff’s is, in whatever ancient clan wars they’re talking about. “I will give the clans your head and tell them there are no dragon slayers left in the Argents,” he says menacingly, and takes a step forward. The Sheriff’s heart rate ratchets up and he reaches, hastily, for his gun.
Chris doesn’t move. “To be fair,” he begins, a bit of a nasty glint in his eye and no fear to speak of, “My family was mostly known for the werewolf hunting.”
And then he smiles, and there is a swift thwipping sound as two very sleek, very long knives are suddenly shooting out of Chris’s sleeves and imbedding themselves into the leader’s throat.
The dragon gives a surprised gurgle, the sound of sizzling filling the room as his throat begins oozing blood that looks a lot like molten lava. The leader flounders in shock, too stunned to move, and Chris takes the advantage by striding forward in two quick steps and grabbing the sword out of the dragon’s dying hands as the light fades from his eyes. The short dragon and the redheaded one stare in surprise for a moment, at the sudden and brutal death of their boss, and it’s just enough time for Chris to pull the sword from its scabbard and drive it hard into the redhead’s chest with another sizzle. The scent of burning flesh fills the basement as the bodies of the dead and dying dragons burn away to nondescript piles of ashes. The short one hisses and leaps back before Chris can pull the blade from the chest of the redhead though, arching its neck and transforming in front of them, wings sprouting from its shoulders, eyes glowing red and teeth elongating in its mouth as an armor of scales starts to appear on what was formerly pale, freckled skin.
A handful of talon-tipped claws makes a hastily, angry swipe at Chris’s chest, ripping fabric and drawing faint lines of blood. The Sheriff finds himself instinctively lurching into action at the sight of blood, of someone else’s, of a friend’s. He drops his gun to the floor with a clatter and dives for the ashes of the leader, digging through the still smoldering embers and burning the skin on his already much abused hands. He hisses and quickly pulls the ends of his sleeves down over the palms, even as Chris and the dragon go head-to-head a few feet away, all darting fangs and swinging blades. A moment later the Sheriff comes up with one of the long, needle-like daggers that had been in the leader’s throat, and stumbling back to his feet, takes a moment to close his eyes and mutter a silent prayer before shifting sideways, along the dragon’s blind side. Chris sees him in his periphery and the two of them nod at each other in silent acknowledgement, almost imperceptibly.
Abruptly, Chris swings the sword in a broad, clumsy arc that the dragon dodges, and the weight of the blade on the follow through leaves Chris open to counterattack, his side bared to a dragon’s mouth full of glinting teeth. The dragon sees this, and taking the bait, darts its head forward triumphantly, stretching its neck towards Chris’s unprotected flank. In the course of doing so, it unwittingly exposes itself to the Sheriff.
The Sheriff takes a flying leap forward and drives the blade of into the dragon’s back, throwing his entire weight into it until it pierces the leathery skin and slides easily into the soft flesh underneath, point coming out where he expects a heart to be.
The creature gurgles in pain, and reaches up to clutch at the Sheriff, drawing a long line of bloody claw marks down his forearm.
Chris very professionally lops off its head before it can take the Sheriff’s hand off.
The scent of burning flesh assaults the Sheriff’s nose in the same way a skunk spray overwhelms any sense of smell, becoming overpowering to the point where there isn’t actually any odor to speak of anymore, just a painful burning sensation along his sinuses.
The body melts into ashes as the Sheriff takes an unsteady step back and tries to get his heart rate to slow down again.
Chris, ever courteous, gives him a good five minutes to catch his breath. “You okay, Sheriff?” he asks eventually, eyebrows raised in concern as his own hand flutters over the claw marks on his chest, just to test the amount of blood oozing out. From his expression he doesn’t find the severity of the wound particularly worrying. Then again, Chris never seems to look like any of his injuries are worrying, even when they really, really are.
The Sheriff stares at him, bewildered. “I thought,” he began, and gestured vaguely to the little long-bladed dagger, now sitting atop a fresh pile of charred dragon bits. “I thought only the sword could kill them?” The dragons certainly seemed to think so, for all they’d gone on about it being the last weapon that could harm them.
“Only blades forged with dragon’s blood can actually slay a dragon,” Chris answers, and bends to pick up the dagger. “For a long time, there were only a handful of weapons in the world that fit the bill.”
The Sheriff’s eyes flicker to the old, unimpressive sword. “Which you’re supposed to have the last of.”
Chris’s smile is small, but sharp. “They were right, Sheriff,” he says after a moment, “I’m not the same kind of hunter my father or my sister were.” He examines the dagger’s blade in the dim light of the basement, looking satisfied when his eyes catch a hint of red blood gathered along its edge. He spins the weapon in his hand carefully, so that all the remaining liquid on its edge collects on one side. “The last time an Argent killed a dragon,” he continues conversationally, “I was fifteen and in charge of cleaning my grandfather’s weapons.” His smile broadens slightly at the memory. “It’s hard to come by dragon’s blood, because it has to be extracted from the body before the creature dies. Once it’s dead, it all becomes ash.”
The Sheriff is suitably impressed. “So you found dragon’s blood on your grandfather’s sword.”
Chris nods, reaching into his pocket for a small vial, which he uncaps with his teeth before collecting the blood he’s gathered from the dagger into it. “And used it. The dragons don’t need to know the exact number of things I have that can kill them,” he admits. “If they think the sword is the last, it’s a tactical advantage.”
The Sheriff barks in laughter. “And they say the women the strategists in your family,” he whistles, in a moment of carelessness. Then he winces when he remembers himself, and what tonight is. He used to wonder sometimes, where Stiles got his foot-in-mouth syndrome, but at times like these, he has to admit that he knows exactly from which side of his family it hails.
Chris’s smile does dim slightly, but his expression doesn’t turn morose, just thoughtful. “Oh Victoria was much better than me at this too,” he says quietly, and wordlessly goes to collect the other blade from amongst the ashes. “But she’s not here.” Chris pockets the vial. “We work with what we have, Sheriff. That’s all.”
The Sheriff, cowed, silently gathers up the pile of stolen gold to be cataloged and returned to its proper owners down at the station at a later time.
*****
Afterwards, when they are walking through the commons of BHCC side by side to the odd looks of all of the students currently taking up residence in the campus coffee shop, the Sheriff catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a window. There are bruises in the shape of a hand on his neck from where he’d been choked outside his car earlier, bloody scrapes along both wrists, and a cut right over his eyebrow that is oozing blood lazily down the side of his face. Chris for the most part, looks fine with his jacket zipped up to hide his wounds, though he’s still a little singed and his hair is a windswept mess on his head. The Sheriff sighs.
“Problem?” Chris asks.
The Sheriff shakes his head and puts his hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Lemme buy you a beer tonight, Chris,” he offers, because that’s what he’d been planning to do all along, before his stint as damsel in distress to a bunch of unimpressive dragons.
Chris studies their reflections in the window. “If we go out looking like this, people might talk, Sheriff.”
The Sheriff grins broadly and slings his arm companionably over Chris’s shoulders. “Let ‘em,” he says brightly, because tonight is still the night and that is all that matters here. “Besides, I have it on good authority that we’re both catches, so they can eat their hearts out.”
Chris shakes his head in quiet laughter but allows the Sheriff to steer him out to the parking lot.
The Sheriff finds out that Chris is both the kind of guy who goes out on days like these and the kind of guy who makes himself remember all at the same time. By the end of the night they’re both a little bit drunk and the Sheriff knows several stories about Victoria that have him believing Chris was one of the luckiest guys in the world.
The scandalized looks they get from their bartender for the state of the Sheriff’s wrists are totally worth it.
*****
“Rumor has it you guys are into some hardcore BDSM,” Stiles brings up casually over the next weekend, while the sounds of keys clacking in the background tell the Sheriff that his son is probably frantically putting a term paper together at the last minute. “You really skeeved out a good population of Beacon Hills Community College with the aftermath of your bondage night out on Saturday, dad.”
The Sheriff rolls his eyes. “Dragons,” he explains. “I was kidnapped by dragons.”
Stiles stops clacking. “What, like a princess?” he blurts automatically, then pauses. The Sheriff can practically see his kid hastily backtracking. “You’re okay?”
“Nothing worse than what happens after a little hardcore BDSM apparently,” the Sheriff drawls.
Stiles physically recoils on the other side. “Okay, you can’t say those things. I can say those things when I’m making fun of you, but anyone over the age of forty cannot say those things out loud. Ever.” The clacking resumes.
The Sheriff agrees, but doesn’t say so in lieu of humming absently in noncommittal response. Stiles gets it anyway, and shifts the phone from where he’s obviously bracing it against his ear and shoulder. “So, fishing trip. You invite Mr. Argent to go with you this year?”
The Sheriff starts a little at the reminder that their annual fishing trip is coming up, and that Stiles won’t be there for it for the first time because the week the trip is scheduled for also happens to overlap with this huge opportunity Stiles is getting, where his department is actually paying for him to go to Eastern Europe and tour places famous for vampires for a History Channel documentary. Apparently it’s a big deal. The Sheriff has had some time to get over his disappointment and be happy for the kid, because apparently the head of the History Department at Berkley thinks Stiles’s papers are really something (they are, and the Sheriff is proud, and the deposit he put down on the cabin they were going to stay at is non-refundable and non-transferable).
“I was just thinking of going alone, to be honest,” the Sheriff admits, after a moment. Stiles makes a sound of protest.
“Look, I can call off going on the trip. I hear it takes like, a day for the plane ride alone, and who wants to go to Romania anyway, no one vacations there, they go to like France or Fiji…”
“Stiles,” the Sheriff interrupts, before they can go backwards in time and rehash this argument again.
Stiles takes a deep breath. “I just don’t think you should be alone.”
“I’m used to it,” the Sheriff blurts, without thinking.
“Liar,” Stiles chides, calling him out on it immediately. “You haven’t been alone for months,” he points out next, sounding completely reasonable. The clacking of the keys in the background resumes with impressive intensity. “You have an honest to goodness BFF now.”
The Sheriff hates it when Stiles is right.
*****
He doesn’t actually end up asking if Chris wants to come with him after all, but only because Chris shoves a smoothie into his hand after their weekly sparring match the following Sunday and says, pointedly, “I don’t know how to fish, so you’re going to have to show me. I can gut things decently.”
The Sheriff blinks. Then says, “Allison?”
Chris smirks. “Scott.”
“This town is too damn small sometimes,” the Sheriff declares, and Chris just laughs at him.
He takes Chris to the sporting goods store on fifth after that and buys him a life-preserver jacket and a goofy hat. The girl behind the counter, Christie, who used to go to school with Stiles, smiles at them and calls them adorable more than once. The Sheriff, upon seeing Chris in his fly fisherman’s hat, supposes that for this one time, he can’t really disagree. He snaps a picture for Stiles to forward to Allison while Chris looks back at him in slightly belligerent confusion.
*****
Chris breaks his leg during a fight with a revenant (Beacon Hills is always full of such new and exciting things) two nights later, and while Scott and Derek are dealing with it as the only remaining werewolves of the Hale pack in Beacon Hills until summer, it leaves the Sheriff to carry Chris out of the woods while two of Chris’s obedient underlings race ahead to get the car. The Sheriff calls Melissa on the way when Chris absolutely refuses to go to the hospital, and when the Argents’ ubiquitous black SUVS pull into the McCall driveway, Melissa opens the door and just stares at them with what can only be considered a judging look before inviting them in. “I’m not a doctor,” she says, looking the Sheriff and Chris over like they’re children, or at least, much older and far more pathetic versions of their own offspring. The Sheriff suddenly feels all of twelve years old again, getting scolded by his parents for playing too rough with one of his friends in the yard. Chris looks similarly sheepish around the eyes, but only murmurs, “I know, Mrs. McCall,” at Melissa contritely. He winces when she very expediently sets his leg, and through the pain, even manages to thank her properly. She pats him on the shoulder and goes to grab the Percocet from the first aid kit in her closet that she usually only saves for Stiles, Lydia, or Allison after werewolf shenanigans leave them grumpy and broken.
Alan shows up about twenty minutes after that, while Chris is passed out on the couch, and between the three of them, they get him wrapped up and in a cast before Derek and Scott show up to give the all-clear, their clothes and hair a gruesome mix of blood and something that looks a lot like ectoplasm. Scott fusses apologetically at Chris (probably because he’s going to have to tell Allison what happened in the morning). When Chris assures him it was his own fault and no one else’s, Scott still fusses, but looks less doom and gloom after that, enough that he lets his mom usher him upstairs to bed while he complains about not having time to study for his organic chemistry test. Derek just looks grudgingly concerned for Chris from the shadows, not in a way that means he cares for Chris as a person or anything, but that means he feels Chris’s injury as a statement regarding his inability to protect his territory and all the people who live in it. Stiles is right, Derek is troublesome.
Eventually the Sheriff waves them both off and is the one to drive Chris to his door, while the two sheepish young hunters who were supposed to help them tonight (but didn’t really help them so much as get thrown into trees a lot), open the door and watch the Sheriff carry Chris inside. The Sheriff dismisses them both directly thereafter, while he gently props Chris’s injured leg up on the coffee table and asks the groggy hunter if he wants anything to eat.
“Not really,” Chris answers grimly, relaxing back into the couch like he’s been through this particular injury a thousand times before. “Painkillers are going to kick in any minute now.”
The Sheriff nods because modern medicine is truly a wonderful thing, and exhausted himself, sits down onto the couch next to Chris, careful not to jostle the leg.
“We are too damn old for this,” he breathes, and can already feel the beginnings of what is going to be a massive backache tomorrow.
Chris’s lips quirk upward in amusement. “Retirement does look better and better.” Allison graduates in the summer from NYC with a major in business, a minor in French, and a super-secret degree in how to run the Argent Empire from the lessons she’s been taking in their east coast headquarters. The Sheriff would bet good money that graduation is also the date of Chris’s impending retirement.
They go quiet after that, just coming down from the adrenaline high of the hunt. Eventually Chris fumbles for the remote and flicks the TV on. The Sheriff furrows his brow when he focuses on the screen and sees a bunch of people in uniforms running from screeching aliens.
Chris looks sheepish. “I like sci-fi,” he admits, after a beat.
“Who doesn’t?” the Sheriff answers.
“Victoria,” Chris says eventually, as the guy who played MacGyver runs through a forest with a P-90 machine gun, hunting something glowy-eyed and evil. The Sheriff can tell that the glowy-eyed thing is evil because of all the eyeliner it’s wearing. “Victoria hated aliens,” Chris adds after a beat, somewhat drowsily.
The Sheriff blinks and wonders if that means the painkillers are starting to kick in, because for all he’s talking about his dead wife, Chris seems perfectly at ease about it, not even bothering to look away from the screen as that guy that played the psychopath in the second season of Burn Notice screams a lot.
“I guess I could see why,” he admits, when an evil-looking snake thing shoots out of the water and burrows into another guy’s neck. It’s kind of gross.
Chris’s eyes start to flutter a little as he nestles deeper into the couch. “She liked to be prepared for everything. Know an opponent’s weaknesses, have a plan, execute it perfectly. She didn’t like aliens because they weren’t in our bestiary.” He pauses then, to make a vague gesture with his hand at the screen. “She’d have to figure out how to kill them on the fly.”
The Sheriff is completely amused trying to imagine people as serious as the Argents arguing about why aliens are unacceptable monsters. “That is kind of troublesome,” he agrees, then pauses to eye Chris again. “But you like aliens.”
Chris chuckles. “Yes. Because I don’t have to understand them,” he murmurs, voice getting softer as the aliens on the screen start fighting another guy who is also, presumably, an alien. “All the other monsters I have to understand. Not aliens, because they’re not in the bestiary.”
Which makes a lot of sense too. “Isn’t this show kind of old?” the Sheriff asks abruptly, switching tracks.
Chris yawns. “I never got to choose what we watched,” he says simply, and then, with a groan and a frown, seems to realize that the Sheriff isn’t moving to leave. “You staying?” he asks, surprised.
The Sheriff nods. “Yup.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Chris doesn’t ask him anything else or protest. He just nods kind of blearily and says, “Thanks.”
The Sheriff says, “Don’t mention it,” and likes to think Chris doesn’t argue because he’s already heard all the stories about what it means to have a Stilinski as a friend.
Their freshman year, Stiles once drove Scott to the hospital after Scott vomited on him. Three times. Some of it, according to Stiles, had gotten into his mouth. It had ended up just being food poisoning in the end and not Ebola like Stiles feared, but even still, the Jeep had never smelled quite the same afterwards. Stiles hadn’t said one word of complaint about it until after he’d known Scott was going to live.
Basically, being friends with a Stilinski is the same as going all in at the high stakes poker game of life. The Sheriff has learned this from his son.
Five minutes later, after several aliens have been blasted to kingdom come with these really awkward looking staff weapons, Chris yawns once, his head lolls a little to the left, and then he’s out like a light.
The Sheriff sits next to him for a good thirty minutes after that, silently finishing the episode of the incomprehensible alien show that is old enough to only ever play in the middle of the night on Sy Fy now. It’s kind of interesting, and he definitely doesn’t understand the aliens or any of what is going on. That lady scientist with the boy’s haircut is kind of hot though.
Eventually, Sheriff Stilinski goes to rummage around in Chris’s kitchen and comes up with enough stuff that isn’t expired to make a decent sandwich. He hangs out in the armchair while he eats in case Chris needs anything, because he’s Stiles’s dad and as such, has had a lot of firsthand experience with nursing someone who has broken bones but who also doesn’t want to see the doctor or stay still at the same time.
Sleepily, he texts his kid around four in the morning.
“I think my ‘BFF’ is as troublesome as yours is.”
Stiles texts back less than thirty seconds later, which means he’s pulling another all-nighter to get a paper done.
“Impossible, unless you decided Derek is your new BFF. Mr. Argent will be heartbroken.”
The Sheriff huffs in laughter and supposes that yeah, he could probably do worse than Chris.
*****
Even BFFs fight sometimes. The Sheriff knows this well from years and years of listening to Scott and Stiles bicker over little things, like who ate the last of the spicy Cheetos or whose farts were the grossest, and then bigger things, like the best way to trap angry Leprechauns in circles of iron and who got to act as bait.
The Sheriff discovers that his first fight with Chris is a little bigger than all of that.
“He has to die,” Chris says grimly as he stalks into his garage, in search of the right type of gun to get the job done.
The Sheriff grabs him by the shoulder, spins him around. “It was an accident. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Two people are in the hospital,” Chris reminds him, making the Sheriff wince enough that Chris can shake his hand off of his arm and go to the cabinet full of firearms. He unlocks it methodically, hand drifting up and down the rows of deadly weapons while he looks for the one most appropriate for killing a teenager, which is, really, a phase in their lives the Sheriff had thought they’d gotten past, back when their own kids had been teenagers.
Chris’s eyes are grim as he pulls out something that looks a lot like the M40 standard issue sniper rifles the Sheriff used to see when he’d trained in the service. It’s the kind of weapon that means no messing around. It’s the kind that means no second chances. He’s going to kill a teenager with it.
William Chen is freshly thirteen and already an honors/AP student at Beacon Hills’ high because he skipped two years in school. He volunteers at the hospital and is concert master of the orchestra. He also plays second string point guard on the overlooked, underfunded basketball team, and he lives alone with his elderly grandmother because both of his parents died in a car accident when he was seven. He and Mrs. Chen moved to Beacon Hills two years ago from San Francisco. Mrs. Chen owns a small café in the strip mall next to the video store and serves the citizens of Beacon Hills amazing fried chicken and decent coffee. She always makes the Sheriff a fresh pot when he stops in during his late shifts to get a drink. Her grandson is her pride and joy.
Last week, Mrs. Chen bragged to the Sheriff about how she’d gotten William tickets to see the Warriors versus the Clippers for his birthday on Friday. The Sheriff remembers telling her that thirteen is when things get tricky with boys, remembering his own less-than perfect experiences with Stiles. Puberty certainly isn’t fun for parents, and he’d offered to help talk to William for her if she thought he needed another guy to ask about, well, man-issues. She’d laughed and said she’d already raised one son past puberty and could do another no sweat. “Boys are simple,” she’d said, pouring him fresh coffee, “Girls are much harder.”
It’s Friday now, William’s birthday, and despite being a boy, William’s puberty is going to be a lot harder than his grandmother (or anyone else) could have imagined.
Because apparently, no one informed poor William that his mother was a kitsune. The Sheriff supposes it wasn’t the kind of thing his mom had advertised to people in general.
What being a kitsune means, according to Stiles, is that sometimes, William’s teenage appetite will differ from that of his friends in that it will also involve wanting to eat some fresh pituitary glands out of people’s brains. William hadn’t known about this kind of craving until he’d suddenly found himself crouching over the unconscious body of one of Chris’s men in the middle of the night, when the poor guy had been routinely patrolling the woods in case of any werewolf shenanigans as per usual.
Luckily the man’s partner had returned from his snack run before William had managed to actually dig open any skulls, but the ensuing fight to survive had left both men brutalized before Derek had arrived on the scene and taken a bite out of William’s side.
They’d tracked him to the high school gymnasium and found him bloody and disoriented, mostly human with his head tucked between his knees as he’d tried to catch his breath. “What’s going on?” he’d demanded plaintively when the Sheriff and Derek had stumbled in looking for him. “What’s happening, Sheriff?”
“We’ll figure it out, William,” the Sheriff had promised, while Derek had glared at him and muttered, “There’s nothing to figure out. He’s a kitsune.”
Derek’s people skills haven’t really improved over these past few years. Like, at all.
So the Sheriff had put himself forward instead, trying to be soothing. “William, it looks like you’re going through some uh…changes,” he’d offered, earning a snort from both of the younger men in the gym. The Sheriff had ignored them, inching forward slowly, like he did whenever he had to try and pull Mrs. Peterson’s stupid cat out of wherever it has decided to trap itself this week. Except the moment the Sheriff had brushed his hand over William’s arm the kid had freaked, claws and fangs suddenly exploding from nowhere and slashing the Sheriff’s shoulder open. His eyes had flashed once, dangerously, before he’d skittered under the bleachers and out the other side, too fast to follow.
“You’re okay?” Derek growled, looking the Sheriff’s bleeding shoulder darkly, like the Sheriff was somehow, also his responsibility.
“Fine,” the Sheriff had breathed, because adrenaline was greater than pain, at least for the time being. “We need to get to William.”
“I’ll find him,” Derek promised, before darting off after the kid.
“Don’t kill him!” the Sheriff had managed to shout. Derek hadn’t answered.
Since then, the Sheriff hasn’t been able to do anything but comfort a distraught Mrs. Chen, who thinks her precious grandson has run off because he hadn’t wanted to see the Clippers destroy the Warriors with her tonight. “Lakers? Maybe Lakers are better?” she’d sobbed into his shoulder, while he’d haplessly patted her back.
Chris had met him after, grim-faced and angry about the state of his men. “Alive,” he’d reported, on their conditions. The barely had been understood.
Now the Sheriff is stuck trying to convince a career hunter to give a supernatural creature of the night a second chance. It isn’t the first time Chris has been swayed on that front, granted, but the Sheriff isn’t sure he can be as convincing to Chris as Allison had been. He’s not nearly as pretty.
Chris checks the M40 methodically as the Sheriff looks on, running a hand through his hair. “He didn’t even know what he was,” the Sheriff argues reasonably. “He’s just a kid. There was no one around who knew to teach him how to control himself.”
“He’s hurt people,” Chris reminds him, which is fair. “He drew first blood.”
“But,” the Sheriff manages, before Chris cuts him off with a hard look.
“He’s injured now, Sheriff. He’ll need to feed in order to heal properly. Which means he’s on the loose in a town full of potential meals.” He places the rifle in a case and then pushes past the Sheriff to another cabinet full of ammunition.
“Derek’s looking for him,” the Sheriff points out. “Scott too, by now.”
Chris digs past the rows of wolfsbane bullets he keeps handy and goes towards the back of the cabinet instead, reaching for something that looks a little less well used, if the fine layer of dust settled on top of the container is anything to go by.
“Is this about revenge?” the Sheriff asks, because he has to know.
Chris sighs. “It’s just my job,” he admits, and in that moment, the Sheriff sees the regret there, in the flicker of his eyes.
The Sheriff supposes that’s fair. He knows what it is to have to do a job as well, even if it’s hard, even if it’s the last thing you want to do. It’s always been his job to keep the people of Beacon Hills safe, after all.
This time, he does it by handcuffing Chris to his own garage door.
He ignores Chris’s shouts after him as he leaves the Argent house and tells himself it’s nothing personal. They’re both just doing their jobs tonight.
*****
Later, when William is lying cold and unmoving on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance and the Sheriff is sitting on the front steps of the hospital where Derek and Scott had finally cornered William, the adrenaline finally wears off. The Sheriff lowers his head between his knees like William had back in the gymnasium because he can’t believe what’s happening.
This is how Chris finds him, storming up to him with a look of righteous fury in his eyes that the Sheriff really just can’t deal with right now. Right now he has to think about how he’s going to be the one to walk up the front steps of Mrs. Chen’s house and tell her that her one remaining family member killed himself in the back room of the hospital he used to volunteer at.
Chris must see the devastation in his eyes because after a minute, some of the anger fades from the little vee between his brows. He turns questioning instead. The Sheriff just shakes his head.
Chris opens his mouth to say something, probably some sort of platitude about how it’s for the best.
The Sheriff cuts him off, because it wasn’t. “He killed himself,” he mutters, and in that moment Chris’s expression goes stone cold with surprise. “When Scott was trying to tell him about what he was, and what it meant. He said he didn’t want to hurt anyone and then he stabbed himself.”
The air goes out of Chris’s sails completely after that, and instead of saying anything, he turns and plops down on the library steps next to the Sheriff and rests his chin in his hands in that way he does when he’s trying to find the right words to say.
There aren’t any, not now, and the Sheriff knows he should probably apologize for handcuffing Chris to the garage, but he’s not going to because he’s not sorry. “He was thirteen, Chris,” he says instead. “And he was all his grandma had.”
He doesn’t need to remind his friend of what that’s like, what it means to systematically lose the people you love until your whole world is narrowed into a single, precious point. It’s a terrifying thing, but neither he nor Chris has lost their kids. Mrs. Chen just did for the second time.
Chris doesn’t bring up the handcuffing incident again, and neither does the Sheriff, because they’re both adults and they know how to prioritize. It was, by far, the least horrible thing that happened tonight.
The Sheriff knows Chris forgives him when, hours later, Chris drives him home and wordlessly hands back his busted pair of handcuffs as the Sheriff is slipping out from the passenger seat of Chris’s black SUV.
The Sheriff face plants into his bed afterwards and spends the rest of the night trying to wash the image of Mrs. Chen hysterically sobbing into his shirt and beating her tiny hands into his chest out of his mind.
*****
They still go fishing a week later.
Which is actually ideal for the two of them (despite what other people may think about timing) because it happens exactly when they both need a vacation from life in Beacon Hills most. More specifically, they need to forget about how they sometimes sit on different sides of the ideological fence when it comes to hunting things and take the time to remember why they’re friends in the first place instead. As it turns out, the fish practically jump out of the water for them the entire five days they’re there. And Chris is more than decent at gutting things, which just figures.
Allison texts the Sheriff in the middle of it, presumably because she’d gotten his number from Stiles. Or any one of the various and sundry pack members that all seem to pervade his son’s life.
“Thanks for taking him. He needs to get out more.”
So Allison is a worrywart like Stiles, only much, much classier about it. It kind of makes sense.
The Sheriff chuckles and shows Chris the text, and Chris’s mouth presses into a flat line that only makes the Sheriff laugh harder.
Chris flicks fish guts at him. The Sheriff dodges, snaps a picture of Chris frowning over the bloody remains of a rainbow trout, and sends it to Allison in reply.
They cook the fish they catch over the fire for dinner before packing up and heading to the cabin the Sheriff had rented. On the walk back, with the sun setting behind them, the Sheriff realizes that this the first time in the long time that the two of them have been out in nature together without something in nature trying to kill them while they’re at it.
And, more importantly, for all that this is his first finishing trip without his son since his wife’s death, Sheriff Stilinski is surprised by how not horrible it is. They spend the rest of the evening drinking whiskey and playing cards while Chris recounts some of the more hilarious hunts he’s been on in his lifetime, including one spent working with a couple of jokers named after firearms who managed to convince some truly stupid local authorities that their names were agents Plant and Page with the FBI.
“And people bought that?” the Sheriff guffaws, before asking if Chris has any twos.
“Go fish,” Chris answers, laughter crinkling the lines around his eyes. Then adds, mostly seriously, “People in this country don’t have any sense of culture anymore.”
“That’s just sad,” the Sheriff agrees, and pours them each another shot. “Any sixes?”
Chris sighs and hands over two cards.
The Sheriff takes them, along with the last beer, and hopes Stiles is having half as much fun in Europe.
*****
Stiles does have fun in Europe as it turns out, and shares some creepy e-mails and photos about history’s vampires even though they all know firsthand that vampires are way lamer than all the old legends and new movies would have people believe. The Sheriff still remembers how Isaac and Jackson’s noses had wrinkled when they’d smelled vampires for the very first time. It had reminded him of puppies getting ready to sneeze.
Stiles, much to the Sheriff’s chagrin, also sends souvenirs from Romania in the form of two matching Vlad the Impaler T-shirts for his father and Chris. The note in the package simply reads, “For the lovebirds.”
His kid is hilarious.
END
BACK
On to Blunt Instrument
I JUST NEEDED THIS OUT OF MY SYSTEM OKAY. DEEPEST APOLOGIES.